No one's healing anyone yet in "Killzone 2." Read more...

I'm not done with 2008 yet. I still need to play the second half of "Far Cry 2," most of "LittleBigPlanet" and most of "Valkyria Chronicles." In the last few weeks, "Halo Wars," "Killzone 2," and "Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned" have taken priority. Last night, I finished "Lost and Damned" (what's up with the Niko-centric end credits?) and upgraded my copy of "LBP" to the latest version. I plan to get back to it tonight, except that a review build marked "Biohazard 5" just showed up in the mail late yesterday. At this rate, I'll be done with 2009 games before I finish 2008 stuff. How long with the "LBP" campaign take me?

Not much time for a Diary this morning, since I need to go do my taxes, but I leave Diary readers who play "Grand Theft Auto" games with one question: Why should running out of bullets for one's weapon cost one their weapon -- and yet keeping one shell or bullet keeps the weapon? This leads to far too many instances of needing to spend large amounts of money on new weapons, simply because I accidentally depleted the last shell or bullet in a gun and can't just buy ammo for it. If there's something to protest Rockstar about, isn't this it?

"GTA IV: The Lost and Damned" has caused me to do something that "Grand Theft Auto IV" failed to trigger: curse at my TV. Read more...

And more names are dropped today, with a very light sprinkling of news. Read more...

In today's edition of the Diary, names are dropped. Read more...

I'm packing to fly out to Las Vegas in a couple of hours (will arrive just in time fo Gabe Newell's DICE Summit keynote speech). The three games I'm taking with my PSP are "Loco Roco 2," "Super Stardust Portable," and -- filling in a glaring blindspot, my friends tell me -- "Rayman 2."

This is what I played during my three-day weekend. Read more...

I ran out of time to play games last night and wound up leaving the PSN game I downloaded -- "Flower" -- idle longer than I played it. I think I logged five minutes of playtime. Nevertheless, I won a trophy for letting the game idle for a while. Now add this game to my list of what's going to be a long three-day weekend of gaming: "Flower," "Far Cry 2," "Halo Wars," "Street Fighter IV," "House of the Dead," and who knows what else! (But maybe not the new "Fire Emblem," unless I can correctly guess which of the game's six difficulty levels is right for me!)

I believe that most of the games that I finish, I finish on Sundays. That's because so many final boss battles that are hard to beat on Saturday afternoons are, on fresh Sunday mornings, easy fights. Read more...